A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in a far away land, there lived a beautiful princess who…
this is how to start a fairy tale, but what I’m about to tell you is no fairy story; it’s the grim tale of real life. It all started…

Well, it doesn’t really matter where or how it started and the funny thing is I don’t know how it’ll end so the only thing left is how things are now and that’s where I’ll start off from. Yet it seems to me that to grasp the present is always the hardest part, for most of the time we don’t know what it is until it passes and becomes something which once was and shall never be again. It is what always escapes us; that which rarely is and yet always was. What a paradox!

It is always easier to talk about the past, it’s so certain, no doubts about it. Even its doubts and uncertainties will matter little, for it’s only the past and of little consequence. And even the future might seem more tangible and felt than what is already at hand. It can be a delicious illusion to indulge in and most of the time it is.

Time is fluid. Perhaps it’s this fluidity which makes it possible to overlook the present, to the extent that we may even forget it at times and slip into daydreams about what is to come or reveries of what might have been. And all this time the present escapes us, passes over our life, like a shadow drifting so swiftly into the past. And by the time we come to realise what is presently at hand, it may be already too late and we are left with regrets over what we might have had, had we paid more attention to the reality of time and the present situation; which reminds me: wasn’t I telling a story?!